NT Is Just As Popular As Ever

Did you know that just as many businesses run NT 4 today as a year ago?

I didn't know for sure, but I surmised it. It seems, according Gregg Keizer in his article for Techweb news "NT's Retirement Opens Windows For Linux," that Forrester Research shows that people aren't moving off Windows NT Server 4.0.

What makes this interesting is that support for 4.0 is expiring on December 31, 2004. That's right, NT 4.0, by the time you read this is DEAD. Long Live NT 4.0.

Now, I am not, nor have I ever been a fan of Server 2000. Active Directory is such total overkill for the majority of installations as to make the implementation of this version of Microsoft's money train painful. Server 2003 is a vast improvement, but I'm still not sold.

How many people really run multiple domains? And with broadband what it is today, is it really necessary to run separate networks at each satellite office? Granted, in this scenario, NT 4.0 did not shine. In fact, it was awful. It was convoluted. It was slow in authenticating. It was not well thought out.But then again, Active Directory is convoluted, difficult to implement correctly, and is required to get most of the aspects of Server 2000 and to the best of my knowledge 2003. So, now that NT 4.0 is dead " long live NT 4.0, what's an IT shop to do?

Guess what Forrester Research thinks? Yep, you're right. That's the answer. Come'on, say it. It's LINUX.

In one of my clients we have the following server farm. Server 2000 for Exchange, Server 2000 for SQL, Server 2000 for Fax Server/SQL, Server 2000 for Accounting/SQL, Server 2000 for File Server/Print Server and one lone Fedora Core 1 LINUX server for a web server. Can you imagine the cost of those Windows 2000 boxes compared to that little old LINUX server " where I can use the OS over and over and over again without paying for it over and over and over again?

Anyway, as always, Microsoft has its work cut out for it as it has to convince business to fork over more cash.

I say, look at LINUX or MAC OS X (which I recently gained a tremendous respect for). Now if only Apple would send me a MAC so I can about it, and learn more, but that's another story!0